


Can't Pretend - [Owari to Mirai edit]

by frostxxbitex, RivalZero



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Enemy Lovers, F/M, Fic Reboot, Leorai - Freeform, Nobody asked me to do this, Not a death fic, Raphael - Freeform, Rewrite, Romance, Someone Else's Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostxxbitex/pseuds/frostxxbitex, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RivalZero/pseuds/RivalZero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karai is NOT ok.  Leon... THE TURTLES betrayed her.  Leonardo and Karai get stranded far from New York.  They will not walk away from this holding hands.  Only one will walk away at all.  Karai is determined to make sure that it is her.  Well... decently determined...  PLEASE READ xxDivineDarkness's ORIGINAL WORK TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS BASED ON.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Pretend - [Owari to Mirai edit]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frostxxbitex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostxxbitex/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Can't Pretend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1876824) by [frostxxbitex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostxxbitex/pseuds/frostxxbitex). 



> [Note from editor: No one asked me to do this, but I just felt that while reading this story there were so many words that the original author wanted to say but chose not to. I wanted to know what it would be like reading it filled-out. So I did some guesswork to fill them in and I hope the original author is not offended. I had to change a few things for it to make sense to me, most noticeably the song quotation. I was not familiar with the original song Can't Pretend by Tom Odell, and I just needed a song that meant something to me and my feelings for the main couple featured in this story. I picked out Owari to Mirai by Girugamesh. Look up the video on Youtube if you have a moment, or the lyrics if you want to know why I think this song reflects their relationship. I hope it becomes clear how this song fits this piece of writing like the original song fits the original piece. (Not to mention I searched "Can't pretend" to find this and discovered there are something like 10 fics here with the same lyrics quoted in it.) Also I've been writing about ninja for years and reading the Bansenshukai, so I kind of lost track some time ago of what most people know or don't know about ninja, so if I use a word you need to google, the search bar is probably somewhere at the top of your window. I promise you'll forget about the cheese once the action starts. All honor goes to xxDivineDarkness for the story and Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for the setting and characters. 終わりと未来 - ギルガメッシュ]

奏でた声が君に届き心を掴み動かしたなら  
歌う事しか出来ない僕に少し笑顔見せてくれますか?  
Owari to Mirai - Girugamesh

Chapter 1: Metsubishi

  A light rain fell noiselessly on the asphalt. The night had arrived and the shadows were laden with dangerous things. Inhuman things. Four such inhuman things crawled from a manhole and crept to the edge of the alley. Leonardo, the eldest, pointed one muscular finger down the street, a meaningless gesture; his brothers knew their mark. eight eyes fixed themselves to the structure at the end of the street. A towering fortress of concrete and glass, at its zenith the letters T C R I burned hot with fluorescent radiance. A deep breath and one thought filled them - _The portal. Take down the portal._ One unspoken command later, the alleyway was empty.

  Four shadows slipped in through a window on the third floor, Kaginawa left dangling behind them. It didn't matter. If the plan worked, they wouldn't need it. If something were to go wrong, they wouldn't _be alive_ to need it. Leonardo held the window, while each of his comrades slipped past. First was Michaelangelo, the little-brother. The portal was his enemy because it threatened the delicate peace, valued so highly by the family he loved. Michaelangelo dove in, humming the theme to some spy movie. Next came Donnatello, the tinkerer and romantic. The portal needed to come down to let the one he loved emerge from the caverns beneath the city and walk in the sun again. Donnatello climbed inside and began to unload a heavy bundle of equipment. Then Raphael, the passionate one. He paused a moment before entering to give his brother a reassuring nod, which Leo returned. Raphael would destroy the portal for one small, simple reason. Contempt for its creators. Only this. Like kicking over a sand castle. In Raph's eyes it was a reason elemental enough to risk life and limb. Leonardo paused to admire the New York skyline. His reason for destroying the portal was the most selfish of all. His own sense of responsibility. Responsibility for his brothers. His father. His city. His universe. His actions. The weight he felt on his shoulders haunted him and doing this was the only thing that would make it feel a bit better. _How could I make it up to you?_ It hadn't been long since he had made a bad call, and someone wound up getting hurt because of it. He never meant that. Leonardo could have used some good news. The moment past, he joined his brothers inside.  
"Donnie, we all set up?"  
"Good to go, Leo."  
"Ok, let's move."  
"Finally! Those squishy alien jerks have been askin' for this."  
  Once inside, The brothers made their way to the top floor, using the elevator shafts. Used a hijacked walker-head to jack the lift's photoceptor scanner. No detections. Bypass a few guards. Unnoticed. Piece of cake. They knew they couldn't stay hidden for long, but there was no rush to kick-off the festivities, just yet. Any commotion could bring the whole building down on top of them with the fury of the entire Dimension-X.  
  It didn't take them long to reach the transmatter chamber, a vast, brightly lit room guarded by alien soldiers and armed technicians, sitting right at the pinnacle of TCRI tower. The brothers crouched, hidden among the I-beams that criss-crossed the ceiling. "Um, why is the portal active?" Donatello asked mostly to make a point. In the center of the chamber,stood a monolith of titanium and white plastic and materials that vexed the metallurgic expertise of those of even Donnatello's caliber. A swirling gaseous shape of fuchsia light yawned in the portal-projector's centre. Next to that there was... Next to that there was...  
  Leonardo shuffled forward on the scaffolding on which the brothers crouched, hidden. He leaned in, mouth open, eyes wide with disbelief. There, standing next to the pulsing, transmitting vortex, gesturing to it while speaking in a raised voice to one of the multitude of indistinguishable extradimensionals was...  
 _Karai?_  
"I said she was bad news. Don't waste your energy on her, bro."  
  Raphael was right. It was unhealthy for Leonardo to keep pursuing this alliance with Karai. Maybe there was a time where friendship was an option, but Leonardo burnt that bridge when he put getting one-step-ahead of his enemy before trust. Before his instinct. Before his feelings. Leo could sense something in Karai whenever she was near. Good? Reason? Honor. Her could feel her strong sense of honor, but maybe Raph was right. Maybe all he was sensing was her sense of sportsmanship.  
But it was strong  
  Even now Leonardo could feel it. Like if her could reach out and touch her... If he could just connect with her, she would recognize his sincerity, she would know that he... Know that they -minus Raph- were there for her. _Karai, I didn't want to see you hurt... I'd take it back if I could, just please... PLEASE COME BACK TO..._  
  Leo had been thinking those thoughts in his head, but for a moment he wondered if he were thinking them too loudly as the object of his torment stopped mid-sentence, whirled in place, and gripped her kodachi, ready to draw. It took exactly zero-point-zero-eight seconds for her eyes to find Leonardo. Not that anyone, but Donnie was counting. Amber met ice and ice flinched first. Caught in the only moment he let his guard down during the entire operation, Leonardo reached for his ninjato, but fumbled. His brothers watched on as Leo's swords floated daintily and gently to the ground whereupon it impacted with a smashing, clanging, ka-boom enviable by Raiden himself. The slow-to-react aliens all turned to see what Karai was looking at. The one standing beside her lifted its rifle to fire and spoke first.  
"THE ONES WHO ARE KNOWN ASffzzzt" with a vomit-inducing display of robo-carnage, the hammer of a kusarigama caved-in/liquefied/detonated/obliterated the exoskeleton's cranial annex, sending fragments of coltan and glass and silicone in every direction, splashing over everything. Karai didn't even flinch.  
"Booh-ya-kasha?"  
Stillness.  
"TURRRRRRTLES!!" the cry erupted from Karai's throat and the room exploded into pandemonium. The shadowed ceiling, above where the light-fixtures shone, lit up in amethyst light as a hail of fuchsia plasma bolts bombarded the spot the turtles had just been squatting. Too late it seems, as the brothers had vacated in all directions. "You know what to do!" Leo's cry more of assurance than an order.  
Leonardo jumped forward off of the cross-beams, raising his remaining sword to imitate a strike on Karai. Karai waited until the last moment, smiling a taunt to her regular dance-partner, before acting on the attack. She parried as Leo knew she would, their blades meeting and parting only briefly, but creating a lovely metallic harmonic note. They each queued up another strike, but Karai was faster on the recovery, putting Leo on the defensive, blocking her horizontal slashes. With their blades still ringing from the first attack, they could hear every move coming. They could have fought each other with their eyes closed. Had this fight happened a few weeks before, they might have, too. Leonardo missed the days where he and Karai would play under both the moon and the bluff of fighting to the death. Until now, their missions had only been a false pretense for trying to figure out who was better - a question yet unanswered.  
  Donatello ran across the truss, dodging plasma-fire as he leaped off of and swung from and flipped over beams, making his way to the platform nearest the portal controls. He grabbed hold of a power conduit dangling from the ceiling with one arm and swung around it to the floor, where he quickly dispatched two walkers with a leg-sweep. Turning his attention to the controls, he jacked into the alien hardware with an interface he built himself. As Donnie synced his external keyboard to the controls, Donnie called out to his brothers.  
"Guys, I think I can bring the portal projector's shields down, but I need to deactivate the portal first! Keep them off of me for a minute; I don't know how long this will take!"  
"Can-do, Broski!" Michaelangelo's voice answered.  
"A minute? Can't promise their'll be any action _left_ for you after that, Donnie!" Teased Raphael.  
It surprised no one that Leonardo's tanzkarte was too full to respond.  
[AnK]  
  Karai's attacks had always been passionate, something Leonardo had always admired in her form. Passionate, resourceful, and somewhat dirtier than those his father had taught him. Tonight, though, they were more than that. They weren't just passionate - they were viscious. Usually Leonardo got the impression that karai's choices in battle were made out of curiosity. Everything she hit him with would not be to beat him, but to see what he would do in response. Almost like a game of Question-Answer, except instead of asking superficial questions about a talking turtle with swords, she chose to ask about how Leo grew up, who his master was, what his family was like - more profound things she could learn through fighting. And he would answer, in turn asking Karai about what she fights for. Leonardo learned much about her through fighting. That she was proud and playful and, yes, sporting, but filled to the brim with a vengence not her own and a fear that ran deep and cold. The fear made her blind. Blind like Leonardo after every playdate when Karai chose to make her customary exit, using metsubishi. She wouldn't say it, but they could have bonded over mutual love of martial disciplines.  
[]  
  Tonight wasn't a game of Q &A. Tonight she had purpose. Having seen so many of his reactions, she knew what buttons to push. She attacked in taunting ways that invited retaliation. She wanted Leonardo to strike her. She was begging him to simplify her feelings. Begging him to become her enemy so the questioning and the waiting would end.   _Throw a puch, try and cut me, anything just give me a reason not to hold back._ Leo denied her this, and stayed on the defense. Maybe that was his form of cruelty.  
Karai caught Leo's sword with her kodachi and the two pressed against each other, jockeying for leverage.  
"WHAT'S WRONG LEO? FORGET HOW TO FIGHT SINCE I STOPPED PLAYING WITH YOU?" The malice in her voice would have shaken a lesser ninja.  
"Karai, I don't... I Don't... I need to talk to you about what h...GHAK!" Karai delivered a powerful kick to Leo's plastral scutes, sending him tumbling backwards  
Then Karai was upon him, looming over Leonardo's supine form. "SAVE IT! Do you think that the two of us will walk away from this holding hands?!" Karai lifts her kodachi over her head, gripping it reverse-grip with both hands. Leonardo tries to lift his sword to defend himself, but Karai's foot is already firmly planted on the blade. Karai gave a sigh. "Oh, Leo. You're so blind. Only ONE of us walks away from this AT ALL!"  
[]  
"Mikey! heads up!" shouted Raph before tossing him the recently-retrieved shinobigatana.  
"Got it, dude!" Michealangelo, who was at the moment rail-grinding on top of a biped walker droid, whipped around and caught the sword out of the air with the chain on his Kusarigama and flung it towards the middle of the room. "YO, LEO, INCOMING!"  
  Leonardo caught the sword and adjusted his grip to block Karai's plummeting arms with the rear of the blade. A startled Karai is flung to the floor when Leo locks her ankles with his own and twists. Leonardo's kiai reverberates off the walls as he gets to his feet and dives on top of Karai, struggling to pin her.  
  "BLIND? Im' not the one who is blind, Karai!" Leo meant that to sound more 'caring-exasperation' and less 'I-know-you-are,-but-what-am-I'. Karai's wrists were finally under control, caught in triangular snares made from the floor and tsuka and tsuba of Leo's swords. She struggled, but only to mask her sleight of hand. Slender fingers slid a narrow proboscis from Karai's kote. She bore her gritted teeth. Leonardo's brow hit bottom. "Both you and your father have been blinded by your hatred! At least HE still has ONE good eye to see with."  
[]  
  Teeth still gritted, Karai jabbed a needle from a blowdart into her reptile captor's finger. A dot of red on top of forest-green. Leonardo winced and jerked from shock giving the girl just the opening she needed to slam her forehead directly into his brow. As Leonardo recoiled from the blow, Karai slipped one hand free which she used to gain enough leverage to queue up a solid kick. POW! Karai's foot impacted with enough force to send her opponent flying towards the center of the room. Leo hit the floor and continued sliding on his back for a few feet before coming to rest about two-meters from the pulsing vortex of the trans-dimensional portal.  
"LEO!" Donnie's voice rang out over the din of the melee.  
  Both Leonardo and Karai slowly climbed to their feet, their eyes still wrestling for control. A bolt of plasma tore through the air next to Leo's head and a second one was effortlessly and masterfully deflected by the blade of his sword. Leo's stare was still unbroken.  
  "Why...! you...! THAT'S MY BROTHER!" Raphael ripped the startled Utrom that fired on Leo from its carrier and punted it clear to the opposite end of the hall.  
  Leonardo used his forearm to wipe away a red trickle that had formed by his mouth. Karai sneered. While she normally would have taken pleasure in having drawn first blood, which was often how their skirmishes were decided, tonight it just was not enough. Leonardo had to hurt for what he did. He had to know what he did to her. Leonardo reached with both his arms over his right shoulder and slowly, SLOWLY sheathed his blades. As the tsuba clicked against the saya he lowered his hands to his sides, palms out in a display of peace. Seeing this, Karai responded in fierce rejection, by defiantly raising her kodachi in reverse grip and dropping into a low, aggressive stance.  
  Michaelangelo, having disposed of enough of the threat to spare some attention, was watching the non-verbal exchange and was spurred into action by Karai's threat. "YO! No you don't! Hang on bro, I'll be right...!" Leonardo holds up his palm to his brother and suddenly Mikey is stilled. The brothers could not see Leonardo's face. The two fighters were silhouetted against the brilliance of the portal, their shadows grown long. The tails on Leonardo's headband and Karai's hair fluttered in the vacuumous wind streaming towards the portal.  
  "No, Hamato Leonardo. I'm not done yet." Karai flexed her muscles and made her intent to attack completely clear. Leo took a long breath in through his nostrils and back out again the same way. Taking Karai's silent advice, he fell into a half-hearted defensive stance, hands at chest height to protect himself. Gritting her teeth, Karai rocked back on her heels and then launched forward into a sprint.  
[]  
"NO!" Raphael shouted, withdrawing his sai from the last operative Krang guard in the chamber. _I told you not to trust her, she'll just hurt you!_  
Without a second glance, Donatello pulled his bo from his back and abandoned his place at the portal controls, leaping and charging over railings, conduits, and control terminals, just trying to get to his brother in time. _There's no way._  
"Nooooo!" Mikey picked up a disembodied droid head and hurled it at Karai. _Come on, bro, I know you can take her._  
  Karai deflected the incoming projectile without breaking stride, her focus adamantine. She licked her lips. Closer and closer she rocketed, that hateful dagger in her fist. Leonardo could see it. The hate in the dagger only the tip of a vast iceberg that protruded from the placid surface of her heart. Thrust there long ago, it clouded her. Made her blind. Leo could see his fate coming. That knife extending from her heart was bound directly for his own.  
He lowered his arms to his sides.  
Two feet beside each other.  
Eyes half closed.  
Empty hands.  
 _Leo!_  
  As Karai bore down on her prey, the gap between them closed, and seeing Leonardo refusing to make a move, she panicked. Drawing back her blade, from striking position to ready position and trying to put her legs out in front of her to stop her full-tilt-sprint, Karai, tumbled forward, end-over-end, winding up right-side-up, on one knee, sliding towards Leonardo. Leo, being unable to react from the relaxed position he adopted, went over like a bowling pin as the kunoichi connected with his legs. He flipped forward onto his hands and knees and turned his alarmed attention to karai, still sliding un-impeded, towards the brilliant purple hole in reality. Karai tried to stop, but her suneate provided little friction against the smooth, metal floors of the Krang complex. In a last ditch attempt to stop, Karai, slammed her forearm into the ground, digging the blade on the spine of her bracers into the metal plating of the floor. A long track was torn in the ground before coming to a stop.  
  Karai looked down and saw most of her body swallowed by the light. It was drawing her in. The winds would not be halted and she was a light and delicate thing at its mercy. Centimeter by centimeter, Karai was being drawn inward, her kote blade only piercing a few millimeters or so into the floor. She looked up at Leonardo who was still frozen on his knees. Now it was without the malice, but with fear. Not the fear that clouded and blinded, but the mortal fear that made lucid. Centimeters turned into inches, inches turned into feet, and Karai's blade's grip finally gave way and she was swallowed by the light. "LE..." And she was gone.  
  "Karai..." Leo whispered under his breath. All of Leonardo's brothers, stopped in their tracks, mouths agape. A mass lapse in purpose washed over the turtles. Leo's thoughtless gaze moved from the portal to Raphael. Raphael's face twisted, his brows turning up and tightening out of concern for his brother. Of anyone, even master Splinter, even Leonardo himself, _only Raphael_ could have predicted what Leonardo was about to do. Raphael lifted his chin, trying to turn away, trying to disbelieve, looking right at his brother and shaking his head in what might have been an attempt to deter, but was honestly an attempt to deny what was about to happen. "Leo..."  
  Only then did it become a reality to Leo. He didn't know exactly what he was doing , but Leonardo clambered to his feet. He scrambled forward and dove. then Leonardo was gone.  Raphael was right.  It was unhealthy for Leonardo to keep pursuing this alliance with Karai.


End file.
